Distributor Sakthivelan on the success of ‘Kadai Kutty Singam’

Karthi’s rural family entertainer Kadai Kutty Singam is turning out to be a massive blockbuster in Tamil Nadu. Talking about the success journey and the efficient marketing, the film’s TN distributor Sakthivelan says “The film itself has strong content for us to publicize and attract our target audiences. For example, we didn’t just post advertisement posters on the online platforms and newspapers. Instead, we highlighted the content by promoting the importance of farming and family values on the print, online and also concentrated on the local cable TV channels. The concept based promotions played a key role in attracting the audiences.”

“As an industry, we moved away from the content which is needed for the larger section of audiences. Filmmakers either use coffee shops to attract the youngsters in ‘A’ centres, gaana songs and North Madras subjects for the masses and for rural Madurai based films, they only use violence subject. Pandiraj sir has efficiently used realistic village, family values, and emotions. The biggest mistake our industry did is that we only made films for youngsters and not for the family audiences,” adds Sakthivelan.

“A theater owner told me that in his screen, the occupancy level rarely reaches above two digits but Kadai Kutty Singam has been consistently watched by 300-400 people every day. This positive trend started right from the first-day evening show, the particular theater owner is now ready to spend 10 to 15 lakhs to renovate his theater,” exclaims the distributor who also says that Kadai Kutty Singam is a trendsetter movie and it will bring back the popular rural family genre in Tamil cinema.

Sakthivelan feels that the success of a genre only depends on how directors handle the subject. “Once comedy genre was super successful in Tamil Nadu but a few directors failed to handled it well that producers are no longer are making such films. Saami Padam like Amman was also successful but too much of graphics in those films were criticized and filmmakers stopped pursuing the genre. Similarly, some of the family entertainers were over the top and producers moved out of the genre. Kadai Kutty Singam will bring back the evergreen family entertainer to Tamil cinema again,” says the distributor who also released Karthick Naren’s Dhurvangal Pathinaaru.

Talking about the box office success of the film, Sakthi says: “Exhibitors telling me that the film will continue for 4-5 weeks without any push. They are expecting genuine 50 days run in many theaters. Presenting shields to theater owners has become a forgotten culture in Tamil cinema, exhibitors want me to hold a shield function soon.”

In the first week, Kadai Kutty Singam is expected to gross around 21cr. “Exhibitors are telling me that the second-week numbers will be on par with the first week collections,” says Sakthi. Generally, the second-week collection of any big film will be around 50-60% of the first week numbers.